PM2 Cheatsheet

# Global install via NPM
npm install pm2@latest -g
 
# Or via Yarn
yarn global add pm2
 
# Check version
pm2 -v

pm2 start app.js                   # Start script with default name
pm2 start app.js --name "api"      # Start and assign custom process name
pm2 start npm --name "web" -- start # Run npm script (e.g. Next.js / Nuxt)
pm2 start "npm run dev" --name "dev-app"

pm2 start app.js -i max            # Spread across all available CPU cores
pm2 start app.js -i 4              # Start exactly 4 instances in cluster mode
pm2 scale api 6                    # Scale running app to 6 instances

pm2 start app.js --watch           # Restart on file changes
pm2 start app.js --max-memory-restart 500M # Auto-restart if RAM exceeds 500MB

pm2 stop app_name                  # Stop process by name
pm2 stop all                       # Stop all running processes
pm2 restart app_name               # Hard restart process
pm2 restart all                    # Restart all processes
pm2 reload app_name                # Zero-downtime hot reload (cluster mode)
pm2 reload all                     # Zero-downtime reload all processes
pm2 delete app_name                # Stop and remove from PM2 list
pm2 delete all                     # Delete all registered processes

pm2 list                           # Display all managed processes and status
pm2 ls                             # Short alias for list
pm2 status                         # Table view of CPU/RAM/Uptime
pm2 monit                          # Real-time terminal dashboard (CPU, memory, logs)
pm2 show app_name                  # Inspect environment, paths, metadata of app
pm2 env 0                          # Show exported environment variables for process ID 0

pm2 logs                           # Tail logs across all apps
pm2 logs app_name                  # Tail logs for specific app
pm2 logs --lines 100               # Output last 100 log lines
pm2 logs --raw                     # Stream logs without timestamps/metadata
pm2 flush                          # Truncate and clear all log files
pm2 reloadLogs                     # Reopen log files (useful with logrotate)

# 1. Save currently running process list
pm2 save
 
# 2. Generate and configure system startup script
pm2 startup
# (Run the generated sudo env command printed by PM2)
 
# 3. Disable startup script
pm2 unstartup
 
# 4. Restore previously saved processes
pm2 resurrect

pm2 init                           # Creates ecosystem.config.js

module.exports = {
  apps: [
    {
      name: "api-service",
      script: "./server.js",
      instances: "max",
      exec_mode: "cluster",
      autorestart: true,
      max_memory_restart: "500M",
      env: {
        NODE_ENV: "development",
        PORT: 3000
      },
      env_production: {
        NODE_ENV: "production",
        PORT: 8080
      }
    }
  ]
};

pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
pm2 start ecosystem.config.js --env production
pm2 reload ecosystem.config.js